Merkel’s Million Migrant March Marathon Making Masses Mad

Where on earth could all of this German nervousness possibly be coming from these days?

Refugees

The 1,000,000 refugee mark has almost been reached, the Paris Attacks are barely three weeks old, Saudi Arabia is openly financing religious radicals here, broke-weenie German aircraft are off to Syria and elsewhere (for repairs?), Germany’s AfD anti-immigration party’s numbers keep looking better and better, the Front National is getting fat and sassy in France… What, me worry?

There is one thing that really and truly gives me the creeps, however: Til Schweiger’s threat to make a migrant movie. That might just break this camel’s back.

While vast numbers of Germans have volunteered to help refugees, there has also been a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment that has buoyed the populist and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

German Of The Day: Datenschutz

That means data privacy and Germans are notoriously big on that, as you well know.

Tornado

Take Germany’s planned reconnaissance flights over Syria and Iraq, for instance. Germans are so concerned about data privacy that they are already planning not to share the intelligence they might gather there with their allies. Sicher ist sicher (better safe than sorry).

The aircraft are expected to operate from Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, and as Nato allies, the two countries would normally expect to share intelligence. But German commanders are concerned Turkey may use surveillance information from the flights to direct attacks against Kurdish forces allied to the West.

Deutscher Anti-IS-Einsatz: Berlin will Aufklärungsdaten für Türkei zensieren

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Not.

Within the next 45 years, the nation’s population will decline by at least 10 percent — whereas most countries, including the United States, expect the opposite to happen. Some consider that dynamic to be the driving force behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to take in nearly 1 million refugees this year alone.

Then We’ll Send Our Better Half

Syria conflict: Half of German Tornado jets ‘not airworthy’

Tornado

Ain’t no big deal, as German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has stressed, because Germany only needs to send six Tornado jets for the proposed mission against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria. Six that maybe ought to be halfway operational, she means.

This German war machine, she is stll broken, señor (thank goodness weapons exports are still A-OK, though).

“Die Lage der fliegenden Systeme bleibt unbefriedigend.”

German Of The Day: Massenschlägerei

That means a mass brawl or free-for-all. Like the ones that took place between refugees in Berlin (and elsewhere) last weekend.

Schlägerei

So here’s the first predictable reaction in the German media: What have we (the Germans) done wrong to have caused this?

It must get tiring always having to be in the wrong, don’t you think? My own personal theory here is that these refugees just aren’t that much into other refugees anymore.

Meanwhile… When not beating each other up in refugee centers, it appears that these folks are being singled out for recruitment by radical Islamists. Jeepers. Who would have thought that?

“You can’t put Afghans, Syrians and Eritreans in the same place because they hate each other.”

When In Doubt Just Say No

Nein, nein, nein, already. Nolympics in Hamburg, either.

Nolympics

As you can see up there, Hamburgers were too afraid that the Olympics they decided not to bid to host for yesterday would have brought more police brutality, more barbed wire fences, more school crossing cops escorting people to airports, more big nasty retro surveillance cameras and more US-Amerikan Yankee dollars coming out of the chimney of some Hamburger’s house in a really weird surrealistic fashion (causing particularly nasty air pollution, I assume?).

Put in that light I think it was the sound decision to make.

Let’s see, Munich said no, Berlin said no and now Hamburg says no. I think a pattern is starting to develop here. Boston, too, said no, of course (are there really that many Bostonians of German extraction?). What a minute. Has hosting the Olympics now become some new form of cruel and unusual punishment or something? Maybe we could get ISIS to put in a bid.

“Die Menschen sehen, dass es Sachen gibt, wo das Geld besser angelegt ist.”

Günther Has Left The Building

You know, just like Elvis used to? Only in this case Günther has left the Gasometer. Or will have left it, a bit later tonight.

Gasometer

Don’t ask. This is the spaceship thingy inside Schöneberg’s Gasometer (taken out of service in 1995 – the Gasometer, not the spaceship) where Gunther Jauch has been holding his popular Sunday evening political talk show on German Channel One (Das Erste) since 2011. And he’s done a pretty good job at it, I think, Gasometer spaceship or not.

Another era has come to an end or something. He will be replaced by Anne Will whom he replaced in 2011. Don’t ask. It’s a German öffentlich-rechtlich TV (“public sector” or state TV, if you prefer) kind of thang.

So, Anne Will (her last name could be translated as “wants to,” if you wanted to): May the talk be with you.

Am Ende war es ein eher kurzes Gastspiel für Günther Jauch in der ARD: An diesem Sonntag lädt der Moderator zum letzten Mal als Polittalker ins Berliner Gasometer. Für Jauch könnte es der Einstieg in den Vorruhestand sein.

Stress Lady Back With A Vengeance

Just like she already was here and here and here and here. And here.

Stress

Jeepers. What took her so long this time? I mean, what with all of this refugee-terror-soccer-match-cancellation-stress going on around here these days.

But as it turns out, she and her German compatriots don’t seem to be all that stressed out about those kind of things, believe it or not (believe it).

The latest stress survey indicates, for instance, that about one quarter of all Germans are primarily stressed out about the kind of stress that they put themselves under. These are Germans stressed out about being , well, German, I guess you could say. Damn. I wouldn’t want to live under that kind of stress, either.

Some 19 percent are stressed out about not having enough money.

Around 15 percent need more sleep and early retirement, I assume, because having to work for a living is a really big stress factor for them.

And 14 percent are stressed out by not having enough time to do what they want to do. You know, like being more stressed out about stuff?

The Germans remaining, I assume, were not able to adequately stress through verbal communication just how stressed out they really, truly are.

Wie die GfK in einer am Mittwoch veröffentlichten Umfrage herausgefunden hat, stellt der Druck, den man sich selbst macht, die hauptsächliche Stress-Ursache bei den Deutschen dar.

German Of The Day: Getarnt

That means disguised. You know, like the three terrorists from Paris who presumably made their way through Europe disguised as refugees? Now it’s out that at least one of them traveled through Germany.

Terror

Take this guy here, Ahmad Almohammad, one of the three who blew themselves up in front of the Stade de France. The latest reports indicate that he was in Bavaria at the end of October.

Alarming? Not alarming enough if you watch the news here. Making a big deal out of something like this would only unsettle the public.

“Zu laufenden Ermittlungsverfahren erteilen wir keine Auskünfte.”